Symbolism in T.S Eliot Poems

 

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''The Waste Land''

 “The Waste Land” by T.S Eliot was published in 1922. This poem is a hallmark of modernist poetry and is sometimes referred to as "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." In 1922, it was published. There are 434 lines in it. The October issue of The Classic contained the first appearance of it in the UK. According to the poet Ezra Pound, the poem represents the collapse of Western civilization. Thematically and rhetorically, "The Waste Land" describes a postwar landscape of fractured identity and people who are unable to connect meaningfully with others or the world that surrounds them.

Water, Symbols of Birth, Death and Resurrection:

Throughout the poem, water is a recurring symbol of birth, death, and resurrection. As in the introduction, water signifies the giver of life, a symbol of fertility. However, it also represents death: A literary allusion to a character in Shakespeare's "The Tempest" who had been drowned for so long beneath the water that his eyes had transformed into "pearls".

The chapter "Death by Water," which is about a dead Phoenician, is where the metaphorical significance of water as a symbol of death reaches its zenith. Water, however, stands in for hope in "What the Thunder Said," representing the rebirth of the barren waste.

Drought as a Symbol of Death:

 The speaker of the poem utilizes drought as a symbol of death even though the poem discusses the mental and physical impacts of war. Drought is a symbol of mortality in all of these and other instances. Even the thunder, which suggests the prospect of rain, is described as "dry" by the speaker, heightening the tension of waiting for rain and eliminating any hope of rain in this devastated land.

Symbol of Disconnect between Human and Natural World:

The author of the poem criticizes how the contemporary world has lost connection with nature in the part "A Game of Chess" of the poem. Artificial, lifeless objects have replaced organic, life-giving nature. In the poem, the characters have divided themselves into a manufactured environment "drowned in fake scents." Such a clash between the organic and the artificial makes fun of the poem's reoccurring subject of personal alienation in "The Waste Land."

''The Hollow Men''

The poem "The Hollow Men" is successful because of its fascinating symbolism. T. S. Eliot uses a tight and interrelated group of symbols, including deserts, rats, twilight, fading stars, and the hollow to summon a decaying civilization, usually interpreted as representing Europe after the end of the First World War.

Deserts and Dryness: 

In "The Hollow Men," T. S. Eliot continues the use of the desert as a symbol that first appeared in the closing chapter of The Waste Land (1922). The grass and basement of the sunken men both are "dry," and their hollow men have dried voices. In contrast, "the dead country" in which the men live is "cactus land," as Eliot stated at the beginning of The Waste Land. The hollow men stroll around the "prickly pear" or cactus at dawn as part of some ritual that may be pointless and is carried more out of habit than hope.

Death:

The poem 'The Hollow Men' is about the triumph of death, or living death, over life and living. It also picks up where The Waste Land left off in this regard. The word "death" appears five times in the poem. The rats symbolize the invoke of disease, plague, and decay throughout the poem, stars are 'dying'. It was used to bring the deceased to their final resting place. As the fifth section reminds us, 'Life is very long' (a quotation lifted from a lesser Conrad novel, An Outcast of the Islands). And the poem's final section is haunted by life rather than death: conception’, ‘creation’, ‘existence’, and ‘life’ all suggest the making of new life, or bringing life into the world, rather than death.

Eyes:

Eyes and sightlessness too symbolize in “The Hollow Men”. It is maybe noteworthy that the conversation of sightlessness segues into the specify of the multi-foliate rose (of which more underneath): religion gives us ‘eyes’ within the sense that it can give individuals more profound otherworldly information of the world, and in this way, they feel ‘awakened’ or ‘enlightened’ by it.

Basically, the writer wants to show that the Europeans are decaying society. They have lost their spirituality. Everything become so fake and artificial that no one is honest now. Everything has become artificial now. Now the hollow Men cannot see the reality they are blind now. They are worshipping stones blindly.  They are praying in front of stones. 

Twilight:

The Empty Men’ may be a poem around mediator stages: ‘between’ may be a keyword within the sonnet, particularly within the fifth and last area. Eliot twice depicts the arrival occupied by the empty men as a ‘twilight kingdom’. ‘Twilight’ can allude to both daybreak and nightfall: the two times of day between sunshine and night-time. And certainly, the empty men are active at first light, as their five o’clock perambulations around the thorny pear show.